Programs & Services

RCAC’s programs and services deliver solutions to complex community needs. Our local presence allows us to develop partnerships with communities to identify needs, set goals, and select the best options to meet those goals. RCAC and our partners provide the tools to create change and growth, but the communities chart their own course. Collaboration, plus community effort will equal community change. How can we help you?

Trainings & Events

RCAC expands the knowledge base of the rural public through education and training. Our training expertise is in technical, financial, and administrative issues that affect rural communities. We take great pride in our professional trainer team's capacity and effectiveness. Our trainers maximize audience participation to keep trainings relevant and memorable.

News & Publications

Rural Advocacy

High unemployment rates, sub-standard housing and poverty are commonplace in low-income rural communities. Many of these communities also face daunting challenges to access safe, clean drinking water and to develop other vital infrastructure. These issues are often overlooked in policy because rural communities lack the resources, training or social networks that are found in urban areas. Learn how you can advocate for the under-served population in the West.

About RCAC

Founded in 1978, RCAC provides training, technical and financial resources and advocacy so rural communities can achieve their goals. For more than 35 years, our dedicated staff and active board, coupled with our key values: leadership, collaboration, commitment, quality and integrity, have helped effect positive change in rural communities across the West. Learn more about who we are and how we operate.

Rural Alaskan communities collaborate to address challenges

About 8,000 people live in the 13 mostly Yup’ik villages in Alaska’s Kusilvak census area, from Hooper Bay on the coast to Emmonak at the mouth of the Yukon River to Russian Mission upriver.

The region’s isolation adds 40 percent or more to the cost of goods for shipping, said Jason Smith of the Association of Village Council Presidents. There are few roads, though one connects Mountain Village to St. Marys and Pitkas Point.

But these communities and others nearby in western Alaska have formed the Kusilvak Economic Development & Advocacy Alliance that local leaders say, can improve the lives of its rural residents. The group recently held a summit where they discussed internet access, energy conservation, economic challenges and opportunities.

According to Emil Notti, an Alaska Native leader and one of the founders of the Alaska Federation of Natives, rural Alaska helped spur the state’s development of oil on the North Slope and gold in Nome, timber in the southeast and salmon in Bristol Bay.

“They say there is no reason for villages to exist,” Notti told the Alaska Dispatch News. “They say the state cannot afford to continue to support the villages.” The question, he said, is whether rural Alaska can continue to support the growth of cities.

Efforts continue to unify the villages to address the need for jobs, housing, infrastructure and community services.